


Moffat's Re-Creation: The Bible According to Sherlock

by VioletHuntress



Category: Sherlock (TV)
Genre: Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-01-24
Updated: 2014-01-24
Packaged: 2018-01-09 21:44:23
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 551
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1151134
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/VioletHuntress/pseuds/VioletHuntress
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff"><p>1) I’m ignoring the Moriarty surprise ending.</p><p>2) I’m not endorsing this storyline by spelling it out this way; I think it replicates a lot of what is wrong in our culture like misogyny, heteronormativity, and lack of real responsibility and ethical formation.</p><p>3) Oh just realized Janine = Mary Magdalene.</p></blockquote>





	Moffat's Re-Creation: The Bible According to Sherlock

 

I teach mythology, so I’ve taught the Christian creation story  _a lot_ and I know it well. I’ve always thought that ASiB has not just  _many_ elements of that story, but is a virtual rewriting of that story: The Woman, who is the temptress, tempting Sherlock into sexuality, asking him to eat of her fruit; but she is not alone, no—the serpent (Moriarty) hides behind her, prodding her to act. When Moriarty says to Sherlock “I owe you a Fall,” we know what he means: a fall from grace, a fall from paradise, a Fall from being a god, being “like one of us” (go read Genesis 2-3 if you don’t remember this story well enough! I’ll wait.) Oh but what difference a Sherlock makes: unlike Adam, Sherlock does not give in to Woman’s wiles. He resists; he remains godlike. There is no “Sherlock” in Genesis; ASiB is Moffat’s version of Paradise in which man is able to ward off evil, sexy, tempting Woman—to say “begone!” and not to fall for her, fall into sin. There is only one figure in Christian mythology that is not tainted by Original Sin: Christ. (i’m not the first one to pick up on Sherlock as a Christ figure, that’s certain). 

TRF was not really the crucifixion, though. In TRF Sherlock/Christ was still a greek-like God, able to outwit and defeat mortal humans and cheat death, able to ward off even the serpent/devil/Moriarty and remain above it all. 

But finally in HLV we have the crucifixion, the self-sacrifice, the end of Sherlock-as-Christ arc. And on top of that, we have our Adam, and our Eve: John and Mary. Unlike Irene, Mary is not the classical temptress: she is the other side of Eve, the one in which the name “Eve” means “mother of all life.” Here is John/Adam: he is a simple man who is attracted to “danger” (read: temptation, sin) who has found his perfect help-meet in a woman, like Eve, literally  _designed for him_  (by Moffat, the Creator): she is sweet and psychopathic, comfortable and dangerous, innocent (almost newborn; she is only 5 years old, in a sense, and her name stolen from an infant) and trouble. And just like Adam, who fashions her name out of his (“this one shall be called _Wo-Man_ for out of _man_ she was taken”), John proposes “Mary Watson” as the name she should be called (for attached to John Watson she is). I can’t help but think that Mary wears red as much as she does to connect her to that primary apple; she and Irene are both sides of Eve. One man resists (Sherlock, untainted with original sin); one man succumbs (John, who is fallen). 

And so inevitably Sherlock-Christ must take (Wo)man’s sin onto himself, must sacrifice himself for the sin of (wo)mankind. And so the “crucifixion” at the end of HLV is real:

"tell Mary she’s safe now" (…who takes away the sins of the world…).

Only the one that did not Fall can now redeem those who have. Sherlock-Christ accepts that his death is the way that he can vanquish the serpent-devil (see CAM licking his victims in that snake-like way?) and allow man and womankind to live in grace, to wash away their sins.

 

 

 

 

**Author's Note:**

> 1) I’m ignoring the Moriarty surprise ending.
> 
> 2) I’m not endorsing this storyline by spelling it out this way; I think it replicates a lot of what is wrong in our culture like misogyny, heteronormativity, and lack of real responsibility and ethical formation.
> 
> 3) Oh just realized Janine = Mary Magdalene.


End file.
